Star Trek at mid-preview: the cards that look strong, the shock lands, and what the reprints are worth

Five days into Star Trek previews: a Spock that doubles every draw, a no-win enchantment, Deep Space 9, ten shock lands at rare, and what our archive says the reprints are worth.

Aymeric Lamontagne

Oct 25, 2026

Magic: The Gathering | Star Trek is a Universes Beyond set and, like the other recent Universes Beyond premier sets, it is legal everywhere — Standard included. The debut stream ran on October 20, daily previews run through October 29 (the four Commander decks get their own days from October 26), the full gallery lands on October 30, Arena gets the set on November 10 and paper on November 13. So the cards below are not a curiosity for Commander tables only; some of them will be in Standard decks within three weeks.

We are five days into a ten-day preview window. On the morning of October 25, Scryfall listed 194 main-set cards out of 296 — 21 of the 25 mythics — plus 50 of the new Commander-deck cards and five of the thirty Stardates. Enough to say something useful, not enough to say anything final. So this is a mid-preview reading: the mechanics, the cards that already look strong, the one that is designed to kill you, and what the reprints' old printings were actually worth in our archive on October 23 — including the ten shock lands, which moved less than you would think.

What the Federation did to the rules

Six mechanics carry the main set, and the first is about lands.

Strange new worlds counts the differently named lands you control. Basics count once per name, so five Forests are one world and a Forest beside a Breeding Pool is two. Captain Pike, Fullness of Time is a three-mana creature with that count as its power and toughness who lets you play lands off the top of your library; Deep Space Scan draws that many cards. The set supplies the worlds itself: ten common Planet duals, a cycle of rare utility lands, and — not by coincidence — ten shock lands.

Station and Spacecraft return from Edge of Eternities: tap another creature to put charge counters equal to its power on a Spacecraft, and past a threshold most of them become creatures. Federation counts the creature types among your non-Borg creatures, which is a fancy way of saying the Starfleet deck wants Vulcans, Andorians, Doctors and Officers on the same bridge. Face a dilemma is new shorthand for choosing modes on a modal spell — Elim Garak, Simple Tailor drains two every time you do — and beam me up casts a spell from your graveyard if you also return a creature you control to your hand, which makes every enters trigger in the set a second resource.

And then the Borg. Assimilate puts a creature card from wherever the card says onto the battlefield under your control with a +1/+1 counter, as a Borg artifact creature that has lost every other creature type. It is reanimation with a uniform, and the uniform matters: every Borg payoff in the set says "artifact creatures you control."

The cards that look strong

Mr. Spock, Science Officer is four mana, a 2/4, and one line of text: "If you would draw a card, draw two cards instead." That is Thought Reflection — a seven-mana enchantment from 2008 — at four mana, stapled to a body that blocks. Every draw step is two cards, every cantrip is a Divination, and in Commander every wheel is a double wheel. The catch is the same as Thought Reflection's: it is a replacement effect you cannot turn off, so a long game with Spock on the table is a game with a shorter library. He preordered at $25.50 on October 25.

Dr. Beverly Crusher is the doctor. Three mana for a 2/2 whose first line reads "If you gaining life causes a triggered ability of a permanent you control to trigger, that ability triggers an additional time." Every Ajani's Pridemate trigger, every drain-on-lifegain enchantment and — because her second line is itself a lifegain trigger — her own +1/+1 counter, twice. It is a Panharmonicon for lifegain triggers on a three-mana body, and the market noticed first: $49.97 on October 25.

Dr. Joseph M'Benga is the other doctor and the other number worth reading twice. Four mana: every counter you would put on a creature you control, of every kind, is doubled, and your other creatures with counters on them have hexproof. That is Branching Evolution widened from +1/+1 counters to all of them and given a body. In a set full of Spacecraft, note what it does not do — a Spacecraft below its station threshold is not a creature, so its charge counters are Lt. Cmdr. Geordi La Forge's job, not M'Benga's.

Deep Space 9 is nine colourless mana for "When Deep Space 9 enters and at the beginning of your upkeep, exile the top four cards of your library. Put all permanent cards exiled this way onto the battlefield." It is a Genesis Wave for four every turn, in every deck, and at Station 9 your creatures get +3/+3. Nine mana is a real cost even in Commander, and the instants and sorceries it flips are simply gone. It preordered at $59.00.

Crystalline Entity is the cleaner colourless bomb: eight mana, a 7/7 flier, and "When this creature enters, if you cast it, destroy all nonartifact creatures." It is an artifact, so it survives its own wrath, and so does every artifact creature on your side — including every assimilated Borg. $33.92 on October 25.

Death Is Irrelevant, the most expensive regular printing in the main set at $69.95, is the Borg deck's finisher: eight mana, artifact creatures you control are indestructible, and at each of your end steps you assimilate a creature card from any graveyard. Next to Crystalline Entity it reads as one plan — wipe the board, keep yours, and take theirs back one end step at a time.

The legends Commander players will build first

• Captain Jean-Luc Picard — Three mana: an anthem, a 1/1 Officer per creature or Spacecraft spell, and seven Officers fetch a Spacecraft with seven charge counters. $17.60 on October 25.
• Captain Kathryn Janeway — An extra land drop every turn, and every creature you control explores as it enters. A green value engine with no colour requirement past one G.
• Georgiou, Terran Emperor — You don’t lose for having 0 life; you lose 3 and draw at every end step, and at 0 or less you make ten Officers. A Mirror Universe Necropotence that pays out at the bottom.
• Quark, Humble Proprietor — A Treasure at every upkeep — everyone’s — and you can’t sacrifice any of them. The Ferengi joke is the build-around: the hoard counts as artifacts, and the day Quark leaves, the vault opens.
• Seven of Nine, Unassimilated — Two mana, a free loot every turn that stops discarding at five differently named lands, and a seven-mana activation that makes it a 7/9 once you control seven.
• Lieutenant Commander Data — Grows with every noncreature spell anyone casts, then cashes three counters from anywhere on your side into a card.
• Scotty, Miracle Worker — Every instant and sorcery in your graveyard gets beam me up during your main phase. A Snapcaster for the whole yard, paid in bounced creatures.
• Khan, Vengeful Heart — Four-mana 5/3 that sacrifices for two cards and can be cast from exile. $11.00 on October 25.

The card designed to kill you

Kobayashi Maru Scenario is the funniest card in the set and the most honest piece of flavour design in years. Three mana, an enchantment, and at the beginning of your upkeep you choose a mode that hasn't been chosen: bounce an opponent's creature with mana value 3 or less, draw two cards, make two Officers — or "Abandon Ship — You lose the game." Three upkeeps of real value, and the fourth one has only one option left.

The way out is the way Kirk took it: change the conditions of the test. Bounce it, sacrifice it, or flicker it — a permanent that leaves and comes back is a new object with no memory of what it chose — before your fourth upkeep and you have paid three mana for a Divination, a bounce spell and two tokens. Forget, and the card wins. It is a mythic, and it is the kind of text that starts as a joke and ends up on a watchlist.

Peace in Our Time is its quieter cousin: at the beginning of combat on each player's turn, that player may draw a card, and if they do they can't attack and you put a peace counter on it; at twelve counters, you win. Every opponent is offered a free card in exchange for a turn of peace, and every one who accepts moves you closer to the win. Twelve counters is three full laps of a four-player table where everyone takes the deal — and you get the offer too.

Two ways to end a game you did not plan to end

• Kobayashi Maru Scenario — Three modes of value and a fourth that loses the game. Leave it on the table one upkeep too long and the test ends the way it was written to.
• Peace in Our Time — A free card for anyone who skips their attack, and a win for you at twelve peace counters. $8.16 on October 25.

The four Commander decks

Four decks, $74.99 each, 100 cards with 32 new to Magic, and a $159.99 Collector's Edition of each with every card in surge foil. Their own preview days start tomorrow, but the face commanders are already public:

• Federation Fleet (white-blue-red) — Jean-Luc Picard, Luminary draws a card whenever another historic permanent with mana value 3 or more enters, and the second card you draw each turn puts a +1/+1 counter on a creature and two charge counters on a Spacecraft.
• Landing Party (green-white-blue) — Commander Spock reveals the top card whenever he enters or attacks and casts it for free if its mana value is at most your number of differently named lands. The strange-new-worlds deck, and the one most likely to want the shock lands.
• Klingon Fury (red-white-black) — Worf, Defiant Commander exiles a card per opponent you attacked, playable until the end of your next turn. A commander that rewards attacking everyone, every turn.
• We Are the Borg (white-blue-black) — The Borg Queen, seven mana, gives artifact creatures +2/+2 and assimilates the first creature card off the top of an opponent's library every time she enters or attacks.

Of the 50 new Commander-deck cards already on Scryfall, Command Chair is the one non-Trek players will notice: six mana, enters tapped, and taps for three mana of one colour — or for as much as your commander's mana value. Under a seven-mana Borg Queen it taps for seven. It preordered at $19.95.

The reprints, and what the old printings are worth

Star Trek's reprints live in two places: the main set, and the thirty Stardates — borderless mythic reprints of famous cards re-cast as Trek characters, non-foil in one Play Booster in 25 and in Collector Boosters, foil in Collector Boosters only.

The main set carries all ten shock lands at rare, an Engineered Explosives at rare and a Reckless Impulse at common. Explosives is the format story: Star Trek is legal in Standard, so a card last Standard-legal when Fifth Dawn rotated in 2005 comes back. Its Double Masters printing was $4.89 in our archive on October 23 — a supply event for a $5 card is not much of an event.

The shock lands are the money story, or should be. Here is what they did.

TCGplayer market price of the regular non-foil Ravnica Remastered printing, from Manamancer’s daily archive.

Here is the honest headline: the reprint of all ten shock lands moved none of them. Across the three days after the debut, no Ravnica Remastered shock moved by more than sixteen cents, and from August 24 to October 23 none moved by more than $1.11. Steam Vents, the most expensive of the ten, is down $1.11 since August — and was down $1.22 before Star Trek's debut, which tells you the reprint is not what moved it.

If that surprises you, the mechanism is worth spelling out. The shock lands are not scarce: Breeding Pool alone has 22 English printings in our index. Edge of Eternities printed five of them in August 2025 and Lorwyn Eclipsed the other five in January 2026, which is why all ten are already Standard-legal — Star Trek does not add them to a format, it adds a third recent printing to a supply that already has two. A price that has been absorbing reprints for years does not flinch at one more; it drifts, and $8.62 to $13.23 is where the drift has settled.

The new printings are a different object. The LCARS-frame showcase shocks preordered at $49.99 each on October 25 — four and a half times the Ravnica Remastered Breeding Pool — which is what a preorder ask for a new frame with no sales behind it looks like. The regular Star Trek printings did not have a price at all that morning; only 68 of the 471 printings across the three Star Trek sets did.

The Stardates headliner

• Sheoldred, the Apocalypse — Stardates (“Khan, Engineered Evil”) — The same card, re-cast as Khan. Preordered at $199.99 on October 25; the Dominaria United original was $101.68 in our archive on October 23.

Five of the thirty Stardates are public, and one of them sets the price of the sheet. Sheoldred, the Apocalypse, re-cast as Khan, preordered at $199.99 — twice the Dominaria United original, which was $99.09 on August 24 and $101.68 on October 23, flat to slightly up through the reveal. The mechanism is the one we described for the Hobbit box toppers and the Reality Fracture Special Guests: a borderless mythic in one Play Booster in 25 is a collectible layered on top of the old supply, not a supply event. The other four tell the same story in smaller numbers — Minamo, School at Water's Edge's Champions of Kamigawa original was $57.42 on October 23 against $60.52 in August, and Bristly Bill, Spine Sower's Outlaws printing $34.05, down from $39.56 in August — but it was $32.96 on the day of the debut, so the slide came before Star Trek, not because of it. Kenrith and Prosper, Tome-Bound round out the five.

One question, and it is the fun one — a third of the set is still in the dark, so the answer may change by Thursday. Of the cards on the table today, which is the best?

We will run every number in this piece again after the full gallery on October 30, and once more on release week, when the preorder asks meet opened product. Until then, the revealed cards are in the card browser, the Commander-deck cards revealed so far are here, and every card above links into the card detail view. Live long, draw two, and may your fourth upkeep always find the Kobayashi Maru somewhere other than the battlefield.